STOOP July 2021

Adventures with the LALG Trailwalkers - “We stoop to conquer”

Apologies to Oliver Goldsmith for abusing the title of his classic comedy, but it was a chance too good to miss. 

Reason is that 8 intrepid walkers met at Graveley for 10:00 am on Tuesday 13th July, to walk the second half of the Stevenage Outer Orbital Path. This was the second walk for the newly formed “Trailwalkers” group, completing the full STOOP circuit.  The route for the day, masterminded by Chris and his marvellous GPS device was to take us from Graveley to Woolmer Green, a distance of some 14 miles around the second half of the STOOP (the first completed a month previously). 

The weather was already warm as we met in Graveley, the forecast highlighted a distinct possibility of the odd shower/thunderstorm in the air, so the conditions were “close” with that slightly charged atmosphere that can happen in England during high summer.

As its name suggests, the path encircles Stevenage, I have read and repeat here that it was originally devised by North Herts Ramblers Group. The intention being to provide an informal, active recreational leisure amenity readily available to the residents of Stevenage the surrounding villages and towns it was opened in September 2008.

A brief description repeated here from the Long Distance Walker’s Association website –“Generally never more than 3 or 4 miles from the town centre, the undulating, rural STOOP circuit passes through Graveley in the north, through Walkern, along the Beane Valley, via Hooks Cross to Datchworth, Woolmer Green, Knebworth Park, St Ippollitts, Little Wymondley and back to Graveley, for the most part using local footpaths and bridleways. The paths are well maintained and signed.”

Walking and especially reasonably long-distance walking has long been a favourite activity for those of us who live in the UK. William Wordsworth extols the virtues of walking in the countryside either alone or in the company of friends, whilst others such as Charles Dickens and E. M. Forster (especially appropriate as we walked through “Forster Country” this day) explore the thrill and dangers of walking. For women writers such as Emily Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell, they described walking as a route to freedom and privacy. 

Others describe how walking can be healing – maybe a valuable lesson in today’s frenetic world, in any event our team of 8 happy wanderers were thoroughly “up for it”.
The route took in all the best that the Hertfordshire Countryside can deliver, meadows, arable fields, (we walked past a fascinating set of fields with mixed arable and arboreal trials) livestock fields (including particularly protective cows and their beautiful calves) riverbanks, streams and as it was getting pretty hot, cooling woodland.  

STOOP map